Quiz 3 Flashcards
Intentional Tort: Assault
Threatening words or acts
No physical contact necessary
Intentional Tort: Battery
Completion of Assault
Physical contact
Intentional Tort: Defamation
False Statement of Fact
Oral breach: Slander
Printed/Media breach: Libel
To establish Defamation:
- False statement of fact made
- Statement harmed reputation
- Statement published to one other person
- If plaintiff is a public figure, actual malice needs to be proved
Damages for Libel:
Compensation for things like humiliation and emotional distress
Damages for Slander:
Economic Loss needs to be proved
Exception for damages for slander:
Slander per se: no proof of damages necessary when the statement involves something like a serious crime
Defenses to defamation:
- The truth
2. Absence of Malice (for public figures)
Intentional Tort: Trespass to Land
Occurs when someone:
- Enters land
- Causes something to enter land
- Remains after being asked to leave
Harm to land isn’t necessary
Reasonable Duty of Care
Landowner must warn about dangers that aren’t apparent, like guard dogs
Attractive nuisance doctrine
Landowners may be liable for objects that attract children, like swing sets
Defenses to Trespass
- Trespass is necessary to assist someone in danger
2. Trespasser is a licensee like national grid
Intentional Tort: Trespass to personal property
Interference with someone’s personal property without consent
Types of trespass to personal property:
- Conversion: permanently deprive owner of their property
- Failure to return goods: don’t give back property that was borrowed
- Disparagement of Property: think of defamation, it’s basically defamatory statements about someone’s property that injure them economically
Intentional Tort: Wrongful interference with a Business Relationship
- There’s an established business relationship
- Defendant uses predatory methods to end relationship
- Plaintiff suffers damages
Negligence
Failure to live up to a required duty of care
Intent not required, only creation of risk/harm
For Negligence, Plaintiff must prove:
- Duty: defendant owed plaintiff a duty of care
- Breach: defendant breached duty of care
- Causation in Fact: “But for” test
- Proximate Cause: there needs to be a strong enough connection between the negligent act and the injury caused
- Compensatory Damages: reimbursement for actual losses
- Punitive Damages: punish tortfeasor and deter others
Defenses to Negligence
- Assumption of Risk: plaintiff new risk and engaged in act anyways (like if they signed a waiver)
- Superseding Cause: something happens that breaks the causal connection between act and injury
- Contributory Negligence: If plaintiff caused their injury in any way, they can’t recover
- Comparative Negligence: apportions damages
Pure: plaintiff recovers even if their liability is greater than defendant
50% Rule: plaintiff recovers only of their liability is less than 50%
Negligence Per Se
Defendant breeches a safety statue meant to protect plaintiff (lack of smoke detector)
How do you win a Products Liability Lawsuit?
- Negligence: Manufacturer fails to exercise reasonable standard of care in making the product
- Fraudulent Misrepresentation: fraud made knowingly or with reckless disregard
- Strict Liability: holds manufacturers, sellers, and lessors liable for results of their acts, regardless of intentions or exercise of reasonable duty of care
Requirements for Strict Liability
- Product defective when sold
- Defendant’s in the business of selling the product (can’t be something you bought at a garage sale)
- Product is unreasonably dangerous
- Plaintiff harmed physically
- Defective product caused the harm
- Product hasn’t been changed since it was bought
Who can recover in products liability lawsuits?
Basically anyone affected by the product
What makes a product unreasonably dangerous under Strict Liability?
- Manufacturing Defects: product is safe as designed, but there’s a manufacturing mistake that makes it dangerous
- Design Defects: product is dangerous as designed, even if it’s manufactured correctly
- Inadequate Warnings: defective based on inadequate warnings
Foreseeable Misuse: if misuse is foreseeable, warnings required
Obvious Risks: you don’t need to warn from obvious risks
Crimes of Theft: Burglary
Entering a building to commit a felony
Aggravated burglary when deadly weapon is used Or when the building entered is a dwelling
Crimes of Theft: Larceny
Wrongfully taking someone’s property with the intent to not give it back
Crimes of Theft: Obtaining goods by false pretenses
Theft involving trickery or fraud
Crimes of Theft: Robbery
Using force or threat to take someone’s property
Aggravated robbery when a deadly weapon is used
Cybercrime: cyber fraud
Fraud committed over the internet
Cybercrime: Cyber Theft
Stealing data stored in computer
- Identity Theft
- Phishing: Criminal uses e-mail to trick people into giving private info
- Vishing: phishing, but over the phone instead
Cybercrime: Hacking
Use one computer to break into another
Cybercrime: Cyberterrorism
Using a computer to damage or threaten a critical network system
White Collar Crime: Embezzlement
Taking money you were entrusted to handle
While Collar Crime: Mail and Wire Fraud
Uses US mail or internet to defraud the public
White collar crime: Bribery
Offering to give someone something of value to influence them in some way that serves a private interest
White collar crime: Bankruptcy Fraud
Evading effect of federal bankruptcy law
White collar crime: insider trading
Buying/selling publicly traded securities based on knowledge not available to the public
White collar crime: theft of trade secrets
Buying/possessing another’s trade secrets and without their authorization
Organized Crime: money laundering
Engaging in financial transactions that conceal the identity of illegally gained funds and run them through a legit business
Organized Crime: Racketeering
Using a business to commit illegal acts
RICO says that if someone commits two or more RICO offenses, they’re guilty of racketeering
Defenses to criminal liability: Justifiable use of force
Self defense
Deadly force can’t be used to protect property
Defenses to criminal liability: Necessity
Criminal act necessary to prevent greater harm
Defenses to criminal liability: insanity
Defendant incapable of the state of mind required to commit a crime
Defenses to criminal liability: mistake
Mistake of fact that negates mental state necessary to commit a crime, like taking someone’s backpack that you thought was yours
Defenses to criminal liability: Duress
Wrongful threat induced defendant to commit a crime they wouldn’t have otherwise committed
Not a defense to murder
Defendant must believe they’re in immediate danger
Defenses to criminal liability: Entrapment
Defendant induced by a public official to commit a crime they wouldn’t have otherwise committed
Defenses to criminal liability: statute of limitations
Prosecution must be brought within a specific period of years after the crime’s committed
Defenses to criminal liability: Immunity
Allows defendant not to be prosecuted in exchange for information
